Breaking Down Risk

Sat, 06/25/2016 - 7:17am — CoreySpoores

Breaking Down Risk

Breaking down risk and its application to whitewater kayaking
helps determine success or failure while on the river. Whether you are new to whitewater or a
seasoned veteran, we all deal with fear and anxiety while on the water. When we
look at most new kayakers they tend to lack self-confidence, as our skill level
increases our self-confidence increases. Until “it” happens, that swim in a
hole or long set of rapids; or taking a hard hit under water.

What is the difference between those kayakers who have taken
big hits and moved on or the kayaker who takes the bit hit and suddenly their
forward progress stalls? A large step in transcending the steps of greenhorn
kayaker to an experienced intermediate or advanced kayaker is choosing how to
look at the problems or challenges on the river while running the rapids. When you kayak through a rapid do you only
see the holes and rocks, or do you only see the smooth lines as they flow
through and around the obstacles?

Often times, people don’t readily evaluate their skills or
their assets before tackling new water. Lots of folks often rely on their
friends to help them along, show the lines, and do the scouting.

To begin
breaking down the risk on the water, you need only to ask yourself 5 questions.

Do I have the right EQUIPMENT.

Am I PHYSICALLY PREPARED.

Am I in the right LOCATION.

Do I have the SKILLS.

Do I have the EXPERIENCE.

As you answer these questions, you will find that your skills
will increase and so will your self-confidence.

Do I have
the right equipment? Are you in a
fully outfitted creek boat, with all of the proper safety gear, or do you have
a recreational kayak from the local sporting goods store?

Am I
physically prepared? Do I regularly
exercise, so that I can feel confident with the demands of my sport?

Am I in the
right location? Does this river
match my Skills and Experience?

Do I have
the skills? Do you play boat, can
you execute a combat roll, can you surf holes and waves?

Do I have
the experience? Have I boated
similar rivers with similar conditions, is this the first river of the season?

Chances are while you were reading the above examples your
mind began to wander to your most recent paddling trip, and you hashed out your
perceived success or failure. These five steps do not work until we evaluate and
mitigate the risk. This happens when we break the perceived risk down from a
large and daunting thing into many smaller actions or tasks.

Think of this as a bottom to top approach in scouting a new
rapid. Once we pull off the water to
boat scout, we look at the bottom of the rapid and identify any hazards. Then
we look at the middle of the rapid and identify any hazards. Lastly we look at
the entrance to the rapid and identify any hazards. This idea is called a
horizontal approach.

Once we have a clear
mental picture of the rapids broken down with each sections hazards identified,
we have to ask ourselves; what is the line through each section we scouted and
piece each section together? If during the course of this process we find that
the probable
line takes us into a deadly or dangerous feature, we scratch the rapid. If the
probable line does not take us near the deadly or dangerous features, we can
forget about them forever and run the rapid. By going through this exercise we
have cut each rapid down into bite sized pieces, and have mitigated the risk to
an acceptable level by pointing positive. This idea is called a vertical
approach.

Pointing Positive eliminates the, what if part of the
question and adds the how to, while running a new rapids on new rivers. By
using the horizontal and vertical approach while scouting we eliminate some of
the anxiety and fear that leads to poor boat control. So the next time you and
your friends are out running a new river, give this a shot.